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Sunday, 22 December 2013

Vintage Christmas Trees

I can't believe that Christmas is almost upon us! The year has gone by with the speed of light. Sometimes I feel like I have hardly any time to breathe. I'm still tweaking my Christmas decorations. Somehow, quite by happenstance (isn't that always the way?) I ended up with a collection of vintage ceramic Christmas trees, all of them thrifted. So I decided this year would the year of the Christmas tree.

They are teetering on the edge of kitschy with their rainbow of bright cheery lights but I do adore them.

I held back on adding other decorations and just let them be the stars of the show. I have promised myself not to accumulate any more as they are large and fragile so storing them for 11 months in a small home is an issue. Let's see if I can keep that promise. After all, who can resist a Christmas tree? Do you have any accidental collections?

I don't have a fireplace or a mantel so a bookcase stands in for a place where "the stockings are hung with care." I went with a white and silver theme. Who knew that the ubiquitous Ikea Billy bookcase could look so festive? Above is a mix of old and new. The reindeer pyramid was given to me by my sister who was living in Germany at the time, there are various thrifted Kosta Boda snowballs (another accidental collection), a newish owl with a couple of vintage thrifted Naaman figurines.

It was the stockings, picked up during the Boxing Sales last year, and the German glitter letters from Pottery Barn that inspired the white and silver theme. They fit in really well with the stocking holders that I've had for years. Now what about the most important tree of all? Picture Monsieur talking for days about how he wanted to bring home a tree slung over his shoulder like Paul Bunyan. After all, how heavy could it be? Then deciding at the last minute that it was way too cold for that. Now picture me getting up at 5 am to drive us to a one day only charity tree lot (all proceeds were donated to charity). Then picture us getting this monster tree home, Monsieur coddling it for many hours in a pot of sugar water to help it "get over the shock" before finally deciding to put it up. Then followed what can only be described as pure agony as Monsieur attempted to set up a tree along an imaginary plumb line. The agony ended (or began) when he nearly took off one of my fingers as I was underneath the tree pushing and tugging at the base of the trunk according to his directions and he lost his grip on said tree. Mixed in with a lot of unladylike words, I told him that he would have to mess about with the tree on his own. Here is a photo of a naked tree as I stared at it for many days with dislike in my eyes whilst nursing my injured finger. My vintage electric tree lamps were a breeze compared to that thing, just plug them, easy peasy.

I toyed with the idea of going back to Nature with a simple unadorned tree save for twinkling lights. Okay, maybe I was a bit fed up at this point. Slowly but surely, little vintage ornaments thrifted over the year made their way on to the tree. I kept with the rustic, woodland theme with a new owl from Chapters for the top. It still needed something though. I picked up the burlap garland at Pottery Barn this weekend and after it was draped on the tree, I knew what that something was.

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Welcome to L'Heure Bleue At Home. I'm Chloe. Please join me so that we can celebrate milestones together as we embark on a journey of self-discovery into living a simple, intentional life. It's all about slow living in a fast city.